Influence mechanism of Internet use on the physical and mental health of the Chinese elderly—Based on Chinese General Social Survey

Peng Hou

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0312664

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionJune 19, 2024
20 Aug 2024 Decision Letter - Mingming Li, Editor PONE-D-24-24643Multiple impact mechanisms of Internet use on the physical and mental health of elderly people---Data Analysis Based on Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS 2021)PLOS ONE Dear Dr. HOU, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. ============================== Please submit your revised manuscript by Oct 04 2024 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. 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Please kindly revise as necessary and re-upload. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Partly Reviewer #2: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 5. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: General Assessment The manuscript under review investigates the impact of Internet use on the physical and mental health of elderly individuals, utilizing data from the Chinese General Social Survey and applying binary logistic regression and stepwise regression analyses. The study concludes that Internet use significantly enhances both the physical and mental well-being of elderly people. It identifies physical exercise, social interaction, and learning behavior as partial mediators in this relationship, with learning behavior having the strongest mediating effect. Overall, while the manuscript is well-written and presents a thorough analysis, it lacks innovation in several areas. The literature review is not sufficiently comprehensive or up-to-date, and the theoretical framework and hypotheses are somewhat rigid and underdeveloped. Although three theories are mentioned, they are not explored in depth. I recommend the authors introduce more innovative models and variable selections, expand the literature review, and conduct heterogeneity analysis. The conclusion section should also provide more targeted policy recommendations. Critical Evaluation 1. Definition and Literature Support The manuscript's core concept, "Internet use," is not clearly defined or explained in detail. The literature cited is somewhat outdated and needs to be refreshed with more recent studies. The statement "Based on existing research and reality, Internet use has a complex impact mechanism on the physical and mental health of the elderly" lacks adequate literature support, which needs to be addressed. Moreover, the literature review and hypothesis section contain too few citations, and the discussion of the literature is not sufficiently deep. Given that the study focuses on China, it is crucial to emphasize why examining this issue in the Chinese context is important, which is not adequately reflected in the current draft. Additionally, there are grammatical issues throughout the manuscript. For instance, the sentence “the impact mechanism of Internet use on the physical and mental health of the elderly in China still needs to be further explored and made up for the lack of existing research” is unclear and poorly structured. Another example is “Will never assign a value of 1, rarely assign a value of 2, sometimes assign a value of 3, frequently assign a value of 4, and very frequently assign a value of 5,” which is not written in a standardized manner. 2. Methodological and Innovation Concerns The methodological approach lacks innovation. The study employs only binary logistic regression and the Mediation Effect Model, without introducing any novel methods. The selection of variables is also limited; for instance, there are no control variables related to the elderly individuals' children, which could be relevant to the analysis. Additionally, while the manuscript examines the impact of Internet use on the physical and mental health of the elderly, a topic already well-covered in the literature, it does not offer any substantial innovations. The mediation effects of physical exercise, social interaction, and learning behavior are common factors in the literature, making this study appear quite ordinary. I recommend that the authors focus on developing more innovative models and consider introducing new variables or methods to enhance the study’s contribution. 3. Conclusions and Policy recommendations The policy recommendations provided in the manuscript are not sufficiently robust. Furthermore, the manuscript does not address the heterogeneity of the elderly population, which could be analyzed using the control variables already included in the study. To strengthen the manuscript, I suggest incorporating heterogeneity analysis and offering more specific and actionable policy recommendations in the conclusion Areas for Improvement To strengthen the manuscript, it is recommended that the authors: 1. Clarify and Define Key Concepts: Provide a clear and detailed definition of “Internet use” and ensure that the literature review is up-to-date and comprehensive. Expand the discussion to include more recent studies and provide a stronger theoretical grounding for the hypotheses. 2. Innovate Methodologically: Introduce novel methods or models to analyze the data. Consider including additional control variables, such as those related to the elderly individuals’ children, to offer a more comprehensive analysis. Incorporate heterogeneity analysis to better understand the diverse effects of Internet use on different subgroups within the elderly population. 3. Expand Policy Recommendations: Provide more targeted and actionable policy recommendations. 4. Improve Writing Quality: Address the grammatical issues throughout the manuscript and ensure that the writing adheres to academic standards. Reviewer #2: The study used the CGSS data to analyze the impact of Internet using to the health of elderly people. Overall, the manuscript is well-written and the method is sound. My concerns are as follows. (1) The Materials and Methods section is too long, in particular the “Research hypotheses” subsection. Most of the text should be discussed in the “Literature review” section while keeping the Methods section concise. (2) The description on the variables is also unnecessarily long. Most of it is just to repeat the contents in Table 1. (3) Why many variables are called “Dummy variable” in Table 1. They are categorical scale variables. (4) The interpretation of eq (1) in “Model Settings” and the formula for the OR value is wrong. (5) I would like suggest to use the forest plot of the confidence intervals of the OR values to represent the results instead of Tables. (6) The language should be improved. ****** 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: No ******** [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Reviewer Feedback.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0312664.r001
Revision 1
7 Oct 2024 Author Response PONE-D-24-24643: Response to reviewers Dear Editor and Reviewers: Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to review the manuscript! First of all, I would like to express my sincere gratitude. Your professional review comments are very important for improving the academic research quality of this article, helping me identify shortcomings and providing constructive guidance for the revision and improvement of the paper. Thanks again! I have carefully read and analyzed all the feedback from the reviewer and editor, and have made corresponding revisions and improvements throughout the entire article. The modifications in the text have been marked in red. Revision notes, point-to-point, are given as follows: Review-1: Response to the questions one by one Here are the general comments from the reviewer: The manuscript under review investigates the impact of Internet use on the physical and mental health of elderly individuals, utilizing data from the Chinese General Social Survey and applying binary logistic regression and stepwise regression analyses. The study concludes that Internet use significantly enhances both the physical and mental well-being of elderly people. It identifies physical exercise, social interaction, and learning behavior as partial mediators in this relationship, with learning behavior having the strongest mediating effect. Overall, while the manuscript is well-written and presents a thorough analysis, it lacks innovation in several areas. The literature review is not sufficiently comprehensive or up-to-date, and the theoretical framework and hypotheses are somewhat rigid and underdeveloped. Although three theories are mentioned, they are not explored in depth. I recommend the authors introduce more innovative models and variable selections, expand the literature review, and conduct heterogeneity analysis. The conclusion section should also provide more targeted policy recommendations. Response: Thank you for the comments and suggestions from the reviewers. Firstly, I have added the latest literature to support the research content in the literature review section; Secondly, I provided a detailed description of the three supporting theories present in my research content; Again, new control variables were introduced and relevant models were replaced; Finally, heterogeneity analysis was conducted and more targeted policy recommendations were provided. To ensure the reviewers and editors have a clear understanding, the following is a detailed explanation of the revisions. Critical Evaluation 1) Definition and Literature Support The manuscript's core concept, "Internet use," is not clearly defined or explained in detail. The literature cited is somewhat outdated and needs to be refreshed with more recent studies. The statement "Based on existing research and reality, Internet use has a complex impact mechanism on the physical and mental health of the elderly" lacks adequate literature support, which needs to be addressed. Moreover, the literature review and hypothesis section contain too few citations, and the discussion of the literature is not sufficiently deep. Given that the study focuses on China, it is crucial to emphasize why examining this issue in the Chinese context is important, which is not adequately reflected in the current draft. Additionally, there are grammatical issues throughout the manuscript. For instance, the sentence “the impact mechanism of Internet use on the physical and mental health of the elderly in China still needs to be further explored and made up for the lack of existing research” is unclear and poorly structured. Another example is “Will never assign a value of 1, rarely assign a value of 2, sometimes assign a value of 3, frequently assign a value of 4, and very frequently assign a value of 5,” which is not written in a standardized manner. Response: I gratefully thanks for the precious time the reviewer spent making constructive remarks. I have provided a clear and detailed definition of “Internet use” and ensure that the literature review is up-to-date and comprehensive (the first paragraph in "2 Literature review"). In addition, I expand the discussion to include recent research and provide a stronger theoretical foundation for the hypothesis(in "2 Literature review"). Mainly reflected in "1 Introduction", "2 Literature review". Finally, regarding the grammatical issues present in the manuscript, such as "the impact mechanism of Internet use on the physical and mental health of the elderly in China still needs to be further explored and made up for the shortcomings of existing research", and other relevant sentences have been refined and revised to ensure that reviewers, editors and readers have a clear understanding of the article. 2) Methodological and Innovation Concerns The methodological approach lacks innovation. The study employs only binary logistic regression and the Mediation Effect Model, without introducing any novel methods. The selection of variables is also limited; for instance, there are no control variables related to the elderly individuals' children, which could be relevant to the analysis. Additionally, while the manuscript examines the impact of Internet use on the physical and mental health of the elderly, a topic already well-covered in the literature, it does not offer any substantial innovations. The mediation effects of physical exercise, social interaction, and learning behavior are common factors in the literature, making this study appear quite ordinary. I recommend that the authors focus on developing more innovative models and consider introducing new variables or methods to enhance the study’s contribution. Response: Thank you very much for the valuable opinions of the reviewer and the editor! We have carefully learned to your suggestions and have specifically added the following content. Firstly, I added control variables related to the children of the Chinese elderly to provide a more comprehensive analysis (see "Table 1 Variable definition and description statistics"). Secondly, I introduced a new model to analyze the data to ensure its accuracy (see "3.3 Model settings"); Finally, the heterogeneity test and analysis part is added to better understand the different influence of Internet use on different categories of the Chinese elderly, that improve the innovation of the article, and increase the contribution of the article (see "4.3 The influence of Internet use on the physical and mental health of the Chinese elderly: a heterogeneity analysis based on socio-economic status "). 3) Conclusions and Policy recommendations The policy recommendations provided in the manuscript are not sufficiently robust. Furthermore, the manuscript does not address the heterogeneity of the elderly population, which could be analyzed using the control variables already included in the study. To strengthen the manuscript, I suggest incorporating heterogeneity analysis and offering more specific and actionable policy recommendations in the conclusion. Response: Thank you for the friendly comments from the reviewer. Firstly, based on the reviewer's suggestion, I have added heterogeneity testing and analysis of elderly based on their socio-economic status (see "4.3 The influence of Internet use on the physical and mental health of the Chinese elderly: a heterogeneity analysis based on socio-economic status "). Included analysis and conclusions on heterogeneity in both the discussion and conclusion sections to better connect the framework of the article (see "5 Discussion" and "6 Conclusions" ). Secondly, based on research findings such as influence mechanisms and heterogeneity, more specific and actionable policy recommendations have been provided, mainly reflected in the "6 Conclusions" section. Finally, I added the limitations and prospects of this article to lay a foundation for future research. All specific modifications can be found in "Abstract", "2 Literature Review", "4.3 The influence of Internet use on the physical and mental health of the elderly: a heterogeneity analysis based on socio-economic status", "5 Discussion", "6 Conclusion", "Table 6 Heterogeneity Analysis Based on Socio-economic Statussection" and highlight it in red”. Review-2: Response to the questions one by one The study used the CGSS data to analyze the impact of Internet using to the health of elderly people. Overall, the manuscript is well-written and the method is sound. My concerns are as follows. First of all, thank you for your meticulous guidance and inclusive suggestions on this article. Your review comments are very important for improving the academic research quality and details of this article, helping us further discover shortcomings. We carefully read and analyzed all the feedback from the reviewer, and made corresponding revisions and improvements throughout the entire document. (1) The Materials and Methods section is too long, in particular the “Research hypotheses” subsection. Most of the text should be discussed in the “Literature review” section while keeping the Methods section concise. Response: Thank you to the reviewer for carefully reading and promptly identifying the issues in the article. Based on the reviewer's suggestion, we have moved the "Research Hypothesis" section to "Literature Review" section for discussion, and further streamlined the content of the Methods section to make the entire Methods section more concise. The specific modifications are highlighted in red in "3 Methods". (2) The description on the variables is also unnecessarily long. Most of it is just to repeat the contents in Table 1. Response: Thank you for the valuable suggestions from the reviewer! The description of variables in the text does indeed overlap with the table. Based on the reviewer's suggestion, I have removed duplicate descriptions while retaining necessary variable descriptions. The variable descriptions are mainly reflected in Table 1 to maintain the simplicity of the methodology section. The specific supplementary content has been highlighted in red in "3.2 Variable measurement". (3) Why many variables are called “Dummy variable” in Table 1. They are categorical scale variables. Response: Thank you to the reviewer for carefully reading and providing professional revision suggestions! I have changed the "dummy variables" to "categorical scale variables". The specific modifications are highlighted in red in Table 1. (4) The interpretation of eq (1) in “Model Settings” and the formula for the OR value is wrong. Response: Thank you very much for the reviewer's detailed suggestions, which helped us point out the issue. I have replaced the "binary logistic regression models" and corrected the relevant description. Considering the length and fluency of the article, unnecessary descriptions unrelated to the main topic have been removed to make the structure and descriptions of the article clearer. If the editors and reviewers feel it is necessary, I can also add it back. (5) I would like suggest to use the forest plot of the confidence intervals of the OR values to represent the results instead of Tables. Response: Thank you very much for the valuable opinions of the reviewers! As shown in Fig 1, I have used the forest plot to display the results of the OR confidence interval, making the article fluent and the effect more aesthetically pleasing. (6) The language should be improved. Response: Thank you for the friendly comments from the reviewer. We deeply apologize for the language issues! To make up for this deficiency, we have once again polished and adjusted the language expression and writing throughout the article, hoping to convey the meaning more smoothly. Finally, I would like to thank the reviewer again for the constructive suggestions, which have helped me continuously improve the academic research quality of this article! Finally, I also polished and revised the text throughout the entire paper, adjusted titles at all levels that meet the requirements of the journal, removed the highlights of the article, modified the format of the references (all highlighted in red font). To sum up, I would like to express my gratitude to the reviewers and the editors in charge for providing important revision guidance for this article, which has helped me continuously improve the academic research quality of this article. If you have any further suggestions for modification, please do not hesitate to contact me! Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions! Best wishes to you! Author: Peng HOU Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.doc https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0312664.r002
11 Oct 2024 Decision Letter - Mingming Li, Editor Influence mechanism of Internet use on the physical and mental health of the Chinese elderly---Based on Chinese General Social Survey PONE-D-24-24643R1 Dear Dr. HOU, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice will be generated when your article is formally accepted. Please note, if your institution has a publishing partnership with PLOS and your article meets the relevant criteria, all or part of your publication costs will be covered. Please make sure your user information is up-to-date by logging into Editorial Manager at Editorial Manager® and clicking the ‘Update My Information' link at the top of the page. If you have any questions relating to publication charges, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Mingming Li Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0312664.r003
Formally Accepted
31 Oct 2024 Acceptance Letter - Mingming Li, Editor PONE-D-24-24643R1 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Hou, I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now being handed over to our production team. At this stage, our production department will prepare your paper for publication. This includes ensuring the following: * All references, tables, and figures are properly cited * All relevant supporting information is included in the manuscript submission, * There are no issues that prevent the paper from being properly typeset If revisions are needed, the production department will contact you directly to resolve them. If no revisions are needed, you will receive an email when the publication date has been set. At this time, we do not offer pre-publication proofs to authors during production of the accepted work. Please keep in mind that we are working through a large volume of accepted articles, so please give us a few weeks to review your paper and let you know the next and final steps. Lastly, if your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at customercare@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Mingming Li Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0312664.r004

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